Why you can think up the next big study

Do you ever read about some revolutionary new study that changes the course of medical treatment forever—for some condition you don’t have? Just once, you think, wouldn’t it be nice if scientists studied what’s important to me?

Heads up, citizen scientists: now, a University of Michigan Health System team is making that wish a reality. Last week, the team won the $40,000 first prize in a competition hosted by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), which awards innovation in projects that connect patients and researchers in the name of furthering science.

The winning concept is called WellSpringboard, and it’s a crowd-funding project where anyone can propose an idea for research and back it with donations. “Only 11% of adults and 5% of kids have ever participated in medical research,” said Matthew Davis, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, and public policy at the University of Michigan and head of the WellSpringboard team. “There’s a real need to innovate new ways to engage the public when it comes to advancing our medical care in public health.”

Once the project is live within the next year, anyone will be able to suggest a comparison study—for example, one that studies the efficacy of a healthy diet versus that of meditation on high blood pressure. The proposer will submit a short video, where it’ll be posted on the site, Kickstarter-style. If it’s approved, the team behind WellSpringboard will help give the project a target funding goal, and if it reaches that goal, scientists can make proposals to actually carry out the experiment. Non-scientist Internet-goers will be able to volunteer as study subjects and help evaluate scientists’ proposals.

“I think what we’re likely to see here is the development of a forum of ideas about problems that may not have gotten a lot of attention from the existing scientific world, because there may be little opportunity for commercialization,” Dr. Davis said. Brand-new ideas that think outside the medical box may be the secret to solving underreported—and underfunded—issues. “The answers may be right before our eyes in ways that the public can identify.”

Whether it changes the way research is funded is something we will be interested in seeing…too bad we’ll have to wait until 2014.